Milestones: The Sun Rises In the East by Jeru the Damaja
'The Sun Rises In the East' shows how well Jeru the Damaja and DJ Premier work together, with Jeru rapping and Premier making the beats.
Jeru the Damaja is an excellent rapper who grew up in the tough neighborhood of East New York in Brooklyn. He was part of a group called the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in the late 80s, and that’s how he met Guru when Guru moved to Brooklyn. Jeru was in Gang Starr’s first music video, “Words I Manifest,” and started hanging out with their crew, the Gang Starr Foundation, soon after that.
Jeru’s first big appearance on a major label album was on Gang Starr’s song “I’m the Man” from their 1992 album Daily Operation. He rapped the last verse and got a lot of people's attention. By the time he had the first verse on “Speak Ya Clout” from Gang Starr’s Hard to Earn, he had his own record deal with Payday Records. He put out a single called “Come Clean” that was really popular with hip-hop fans and college radio. Around this time, the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels changed their name to the Perverted Monks, partly because there was an R&B group called DRS that people might confuse them with.
“Come Clean” shows how creative Premier can be. When it came out, it sounded different from anything else. Premier took the intro of the drums from Shelley Manne’s “Infinity” and chopped it into something that sounds like Chinese water torture. He put it with a heavy beat, making it one of the hardest songs of the mid-90s. The simple track was perfect for rappers to go off on, so “Come Clean” was used frequently on the radio and at live shows for freestyles. Jeru’s rapping is as raw and gritty as the beat. He goes after fake gangster rappers who talk a big game but can’t back it up.
“Real, rough, and rugged, shine like a gold nugget
Every time I pick up the microphone, I drug it
Unplug it on chumps with the gangster babble
Leave your 9mms at home and bring your skills to the battle.”
On The Sun Rises, Jeru raps in a way that’s both tough and street-smart but also has a righteous anger. In his lyrics, he talks a lot about kung-fu movies like Man With the Bronze Arm and anime like Fist of the North Star. The way he raps is unusual, constantly changing speed and uniquely riding Premier’s beats.
“D. Original” was a good choice for the album’s second single after “Come Clean.” The music is even weirder, with Premier putting together a slightly off-beat drum track and what sounds like someone hitting all the wrong piano keys at the same time. Jeru does his best rapping on the album, flowing but also stopping and starting in places.
“Father of all styling, I be wilding on wax
We hack shit up like Big Ax and Little Ax
Don’t need toast to make you jump like bungee
Tracks real muddy like Brooklyn’s real grungy.”
“Brooklyn Took It” is a hardcore song for Jeru’s home borough of Brooklyn and the people who live there. He thinks back to his first time hearing hip-hop at Brooklyn Park jams and talks about how real the people from the “land of the crooks” are. Jeru says the song hits so hard that “drums numb your ears, rhymes swell up your lips.” The best part is Premier’s drums, which keep changing throughout the song.
Some of the best parts of The Sun Rises are when Jeru decides to fight against evil. In “You Can’t Stop The Prophet,” the third single, Jeru acts like a righteous soldier battling ignorance, lies, hate, and jealousy on the streets, going in and out of bad places. Premier’s beat is another masterpiece, expertly flipping the last few piano notes of The Crusaders’ “Chain Reaction.”
Jeru keeps up his righteous mission on “Ain’t the Devil Happy.” Like KRS-One and Chuck D, he tries to teach others how to live right and avoid violence and self-destruction. Another great track is “Jungle Music,” where Jeru talks about the power of music. Over a shimmery vibraphone sample, he tells the history of his ancestors being forced from Africa to America and how music has always been a big part of African-American culture.
“My Mind Spray” is a pure rap showcase. Jeru changes his style on each line, rapping simply on the first, then packing the second with as many words and syllables as possible. The song also shows Premier’s skill as he flips a sample of Bob James’ “Nautilus” in his unique way.
Earlier in 1994, DJ Premier might have started to prove he was the best producer out there with Hard to Earn, but he made it clear with The Sun Rises In the East. On Hard to Earn, he changed the rules for hardcore hip-hop beats, but on Jery’s album, he got even he got even more creative. The beats he made for Jeru came from hours and hours of them going through Premier’s record collection together. That hard work led to Premier’s most unusual beats, based on how they sound and how he put them together.
When you think about the best rapper-producer teams in the early and mid-90s, you have to put Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth at the top. They made two classic albums, Mecca and the Soul Brother in 1992 and The Main Ingredient in 1994. But DJ Premier also deserves a lot of credit for the great albums he made with top rappers in 1994. He did Hard to Earn with Guru as Gang Starr and The Sun Rises In the East with Jeru the Damaja.
On his next album, Wrath of the Math, in 1996, Jeru kept going in his righteous direction. He acted like the guardian of hip-hop’s soul, fighting hard against what he thought was threatening. This got him into some trouble because he started going after Bad Boy and Death Row Records too much, which made some of their artists mad at him. Premier produced the whole Wrath of the Math album and did a good job. It’s a solid follow-up, but not quite as great as his 1994 masterpiece.
Even though Premier would keep making unusual-sounding beats, he only did a part of the album that sounded as strange and experimental as The Sun Rises In the East again. At a time when most hip-hop was pretty straightforward, Premier and Jeru went their own way and made a classic that will always be remembered. It’s cool to see creativity have such a big impact.
Masterpiece (★★★★★)